John Cena made a name for himself in WWE by taking on Kurt Angle on his WWE debut. But a few months later, he changed his persona from the guy who had nothing but Ruthless Aggression to the Doctor of Thuganomics. The gimmick change did wonders for the 16-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
The Doctor of Thuganomics gimmick came to fruition when he was freestyling on the company bus and Cena got recognized by Stephanie McMahon. She was the one who pushed Cena forward to do the same on TV.
Recently, while speaking on the Insight With Chris Van Vliet podcast, John Cena revealed that if it was not for that gimmick, he would have been fired.
“[If that moment never happened] I would get fired. I would have been fired in two months. That tour was in October and I would have been part of the December cuts. Before I was a professional before WWE was paying me, I was doing it as a hobby. It was like, ‘Okay. I’m going to find a shit job that’ll be flexible with hours. So I can work. And I think I just would have worked.
“I was living in Massachusetts. I moved back into the room I grew up in. And at the time, I was doing something with a promotion there. On my days off, again, ‘What do you do during your free time? I would land and then just go wrestle with the guys at this promotion. So, I was wrestling in my spare time. So I probably would have got fired and just done that,” Cena said.
